Rivaling St. Maarten for Caribbean airport thrills, Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, on the island of Saba, has one of the world's shortest landing strips.

Wedged on a rocky outcrop at the foot of a mountain and with the end of the tarmac plunging into the sea, touchdown here is a dramatic experience.

Gibraltar International Airport

Just hope your pilot has landed at Gibraltar before.

Flying toward a gigantic limestone monolith on a landing approach is never easy on the nerves, but in the 6.2-square-kilometer British overseas territory of Gibraltar there's nowhere else to put an airport except in the shadow of the Rock.

Space is so limited on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula that the runway bisects the territory's main highway.

As aircraft get priority over automobiles in the vehicular pecking order, the road is closed every time a plane takes off or arrives.

Barra International Airport, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

Where else in the world can you pick cockles on a runway?

Rather than think about where to build a tarmac airstrip when you're short on space, the Outer Hebridean island of Barra took a different approach -- it didn't bother with one.

Pilots wait until the tide is out and then land on the beach -- reportedly the only airport in the world where scheduled flights touch down on sand.

In between flights to and from Glasgow, the public have open access to the beach/runway.

If there were awards for remote airways surrounded by dramatic scenery, the Himalayas would be filling a shelf.

In pride of place might stand the only international airport in the mountainous kingdom of Bhutan

Descending into a narrow, high-altitude bowl amid 6,000-meter peaks, pilots -- who have to be specially trained to land here -- bank their jets in a sharp right turn before swooping in low over farm houses.

Landing on an aircraft carrier looks thrilling, but you usually have to join the armed services to do it.

You can experience a good second best at Japan's Kansai International Airport, where the two runways appear to float on the water way out in Osaka Bay.

Actually located on a purpose-built artificial island, to minimize noise pollution for city residents, the runways are in fact sizeable affairs (both more than three kilometers long) and connected to the mainland by a four-kilometer bridge.

But from the air, this is the best way to get that "Top Gun" feeling on a commercial carrier.

Harstad Airport/Narvik, Norway

On the approach to Harstad/Narvik Airport in the region of Evenes, planes skirt through fjord-land, over frozen lakes and between snow-covered mountains.

Arriving at the settlement of Hammerfest, in the country's extreme northeast, feels like touching down on an ice rink at certain times of the year.

Madeira Airport, Funchal, Portugal

Atlantic turbulence and a runway extended on stilts make for a touchy touchdown in Madeira.